Across the Long Sea (9 page)

A few strides in, and Avani knew she'd chosen correctly. As she left the light of the great chamber behind, the path turned slick and steep, cutting almost straight down into the earth, more of a wide stair than a smooth slope. She lit another long match, groped at the wall for support, and when she did saw the imprint of other fingers into the muddy wall. The impression of fingers and palm were fresh, and not human; the joints stretched too long and thin.

“Aha!” She grinned and increased her pace.

The tunnel began to twist clockwise, curving sharply over and over again, like a spiral stair. Avani held her light over her feet. The ground became muddy, swimming with small streams. Water rained from above, catching in fern, rolling across feathery fronds to the tunnel floor.

Her match sizzled and went out, snuffed by the surrounding moisture. Avani tried twice to rekindle the flame, then gave it up for lost. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom, but the darkness remained complete, as thoroughly black as the back of her lids.

She almost turned around. She imagined tumbling into unseen pits, tripping off the edge of a broken passage and falling to the very center of the earth, drowning in a bottomless puddle. She cursed herself for a coward.

Avani put her hand in her pocket, brushing Faolan's limestone fragment. The etchings in the stone caught the edge of her thumbnail, a promise.

She took a deep breath and walked on, pressing close to the wall, following the curve of mud, shuffling one foot forward at a time. Moving in slow half circles seemed less dizzying in the dark. Underground rain hit her scalp and shoulders. Twice she kicked a stone, and the resulting echo made her stop and shiver.

At last she heard the rushing of the river. It grew from the low whisper of wind across treetops to the dull roar of waterfall cataracts. The tunnel wall vibrated beneath Avani's palm, the passageway leveled out and ran straight. Avani's feet were chilled through her boots. She stopped long enough to strike the match, and in the flash of brief spark she saw the tunnel floor had become a wide, gentle stream.

She stood still, frozen by the sudden realization that she might have missed a turning in the dark. The sound of water echoed from all directions. Shaking, she struck the reluctant match a third time, quickly scanning the walls. Before the flame snuffed she caught a glimpse of at least one more handprint in the wall.

“Goddess bless,” she said, hopeful. She sloshed onward.

The eddy of water rose to her shins.
Things
floated on the lazy current, bumping her legs and feet, causing her to squeak and curse. She imagined flotsam and jetsam, then rodents and bones and finally, foolishly, entire corpses from memory: Stonehill's walking dead.

Corpse hands, reaching up from the mud and water, ready to drag her down into the smothering earth.

She stopped, shaken, gasping at the damp air, breathless. She blinked wet from her eyelashes, hugged her arms tight to her ribs. She wouldn't waste a match just to chase back memories and nightmares. She was island stock: practical, stubborn, strong. She would not let herself fall prey to the tricks of her sensory-­deprived imagination, lose herself as little more than an animal in the dark.

It was the warding cant that brought her back from the edge of panic, the bright sparkle of silver past the corner of her eye, a warning. She jerked around, but the glitter remained out of direct sight, a nimbus of power, just out of reach.

Out of reach, but no longer invisible, which meant the warding had been triggered. Avani had her sword unsheathed and in her hand before she quite realized it. She stopped moving and waited, knees slightly bent as Everin had taught her, balanced against the bump of water.

When the barrowman grabbed, it came not from the ground, but from the wall. The warding cant flashed, silver light burning bright enough to sting Avani's eyes, and illuminated the tunnel and her foe.

No larger than a child, little more than a bundle of fur and claw and fang, the barrowman screeched as though burnt, and pressed back against the tunnel wall. It had flat, black eyes. Those eyes reflected back the silver of the ward even as it snarled.

“Get back!” Avani warned. “Stay away!”

The creature flexed sinew and claw, but didn't shift from the wall. Avani glanced up and down the tunnel, but saw no sign of any other
sidhe
. She was wracked by a horrified certainty that an army of its kind lurked just beyond her silver light, ready to swarm and tear and bite.

She thought she might vomit, but she kept her face still, the point of her sword aimed at the barrowman's heart. If he were only one, she thought she could cut him down, perhaps even take him through the chest.

If he were only one.

“Go,” she ordered, and was distantly amazed to find her words held steady as her blade. “Go, and I won't kill you. Now!” She flicked her sword. Silver light caught on the tip.

To her surprise, the creature turned and fled. It stumbled back up the tunnel toward higher ground. Just as it disappeared into the black beyond the spark of Avani's warding, she caught its scent: ripe fish, and old soil, and rot.

Avani gagged and spat, fiercely glad she hadn't bothered with breakfast. The
sidhe
stink recalled memories of Siobahn, and battle, and Liam's screams.

She knew at once that she wouldn't be able to follow the barrowman back up the way she'd come. Even if it had been only one, she lacked the courage. So she walked forward, and hoped she wasn't wading forward into a waiting nest of the barrowmen.

When the warding cant faded, silver dimming to invisible, Avani thought she'd made the right choice. And when the tunnel lit with the distant white glow of
sidhe
limestone, she knew she had.

“Goddess bless,” she whispered again, this time in gratitude.

T
HE
SIDHE
HAD
been carving. They'd left their tools in a pile atop a protrusion of limestone, a smooth white island in a shallow lake of mud and water, rising centermost in a narrow chamber that was more hall than cave. The water was cold as winter against Avani's shins. Her toes were going numb. The rushing air stung the tips of her ears; frost glittered on limestone pillars. Unlike in the great cavern above, the white
sidhe
light brought no heat. She rewrapped her scarf about most of her face, glad now of the rough wool.

Sword in hand, Avani waded forward. Waterlogged sticks and bits of vegetation drifted in tangles, drawn by the same current that plucked at Avani's trousers. The refuse circled the white island like wash water circling a city drain, only to be spat wide against pillars, then drawn back toward center once again.

Avani approached the island, circled the limestone against current. She saw no reason for the lake's disturbance. It was as if the limestone itself pulled and pushed the water at whim.

She glanced sideways. The warding cant remained quiet. She could feel the soothing stroke of protection across her flesh. She sheathed her sword on her back, and used both hands to haul herself up onto the island.

The protrusion was slick and smooth, large enough for three good-­sized men to balance comfortably. The barrowmen had left behind tools enough for six: awls crafted of bronze and antler, and small, bone-­handled hammers. They were the tools of artists, craftsmen, delicate and finely made.

The
sidhe
had left behind supper, as well; flat bread smelling of salt and thyme, and thin strips of hard, dried meat.

Avani turned in a slow circle, counting pillars. Twice ten, she thought, far more than in the larger cavern above. The pillars ran in two regimented ranks along the hall, tightly spaced. When Avani looked up at the ceiling, she guessed at once the pillars were meant as structural support, and she was doubtful of their efficiency. Despite an intricate lattice of bone and wood and vine stretched above between limestone teeth, the ceiling bowed inward, leaking streams of mud and water.

Beneath the river
, Avani thought. Faolan had not exaggerated.

She slid back into the water, approached the nearest pillar, walked her fingers along knots and curls, wishing for her charcoal and paper. She recognized many of the symbols and sigils, but many more were new. Avani did her best to commit the unfamiliar etchings to memory, but by the time she sloshed along the first row of limestone teeth, the glyphs had run together in her head.

She'd have to come back. She would come back, now that she had Smith's key and unsupervised access to the tunnels. Perhaps she'd convince Everin to leave the inn for an afternoon and guard her back while she worked. She didn't intend to lose her life for the lure of the pillars, but she wanted—­
ai
, needed—­copies of the glyphs.

Her scalp pricked, but a nervous glance sideways showed wards undisturbed. She ran a hand over her head, brushing frost from her scarf, and then waded around the periphery of the hall.

She thought the walls had once been smooth and straight. Now they bulged and melted, mud slipping from great pockets, loosened by the ever-­encroaching river above. The hall was nearing collapse, she thought. She shivered, not with cold but with memories of drowning in the deep.

Avani found the limestone tablet where the long east wall met the north, set into mud at shoulder height, mostly hidden behind a fall of blue fern. She tugged the plant free, dislodging clumps of sticky dirt, and let the fronts float away in the current.

The limestone square was crooked, loose in the wall. Avani was afraid to touch it for fear of sending it tumbling after mud and fern. She wondered briefly if she might pull it from the wall, run with it back up the spiraling tunnels and into fresh air, and then dismissed the reckless urge.

Etching covered the rectangular plaque from corner to corner. Avani's eye for pattern and artistry noted the variation in depth and craft, and she decided the plaque was the work of many different individuals, or one individual much changed by time or circumstance.

She fished Faolan's fragment from her pocket and matched the piece to a break in the limestone face. The edges matched but the piece refused to stick. Avani knew the marks of a chisel when she saw them; the glyph had been purposefully broken free.

 

Chapter Seven

I
N
THE
END
, Avani climbed out of the barrows the same way she'd come. Her knees went rubbery at the very thought of what might be watching her from the shadows, and she clenched the hilt of her sword until her fingers cramped and ached. She gnawed on the inside of her cheek, trying to keep her breath from gusting audibly in the air. Still, it was a long, surprisingly steep climb back up the spiral path, full of missteps and sideways slips, and she was gasping by the time she reached the great chamber, her shoulders hunched and tight against blows that never came.

The ward flickered a pale silver twice as Avani hurried through the tunnels, and each time she'd paused, holding her breath, but whatever danger lurked out of sight seemed intent on remaining hidden. She scraped her knuckles along the tunnel wall, afraid to light a match, and tried not to stumble in her haste.

The great cavern brought warmth and relief. She stood on the edge of bright light, panting against the back of her wrist, waiting for her eyes to adjust. In spite of the dormant warding cant, she half expected an army of flat-­eyed
sidhe
lying in wait amongst puddles and pillars.

The chamber walls tossed back the sound of her footsteps and the drip of water; the rest was silence. Not a barrowman in sight, and when she took a lucid moment to test the air with her nose, she smelled only limestone and damp.

Avani didn't quite run across the floor to the Widow's passage, but it was a close thing. She kept sword in hand until she reached the gate and was forced to slither back through on hands and knees. She closed and locked the gate behind her, difficult in the tight space, and then crawled forward with all the desperate elegance of a water snake chased by a flock of needlefish.

She tumbled free of the narrow passage and into twilight, managing to catch her fall with her palms and turn it into a tight somersault.

She fetched up against clumps of gorse, scarf tangled around her mouth and nose, her sword slung off her shoulder and into the turf.

“Nicely done,” Everin said, dry. “Talented as any court jester. Are you pursued? Need I rise to your protection?”

Avani tugged wool for her face. She regarded the big man where he sat on a crop of low stone, legs crossed, elbows propped on his knees. She might have thought he was drowsing in the twilight, if not for the hard glint in his bared teeth.

“Nay.” She adjusted her sword, then climbed to her feet, and brushed mud from her wet trousers. A glance behind showed her only stone and holly. “They left me alone.”

His mouth set in a flat line.

“Good luck, that. I'd hate to go in after your bones.” He rose, fluid. “Did you find what you were looking for? Surely you must have; you were missing for most of the day.”

The purpling sky punctuated his censor. Avani lifted her chin.

“I did. And I'll apologize. I didn't mean to be gone so long.”

“No person does.” Everin crossed spring grass until he loomed. “But the
sidhe
tunnels are funny things, black eyes. A day, a season, a generation, it's all the same under the skin of the earth. You might have emerged from yon rock and discovered the Downs mowed flat by a passing age.”

Avani set her jaw and glared back.

“I reckoned it unlikely,” she said. “And worth the risk.”

“For a bit of broken etching?” At Avani's surprised start, Everin grinned. “Oh, aye, Faolan told me all about your chip of stone. After I found your note and near threatened the information out of him. Clever bastard, to tempt you so; you've gone obsessive over the
sidhe
scribings, Avani. They'll bring you nothing but heartache, I guarantee it.”

“All knowledge is sweet water,” Avani retorted, repeating one of her mother's favorite pieces of wisdom. “Sweetest when shared between friends,” she added with pointed emphasis.

“And some things learned in the dark are best forgotten,” Everin replied, sharp.

He stood over her, blocking the sky. She thought he meant to grab her about the shoulders. The forgotten cant flashed a brilliant warning, and Everin jerked away, startled.

“I'm not helpless,” she said, a warning. “Nor undefended, Everin.”

He sighed, scrubbing fingers through close-­cropped hair.

“I mean you no harm, black eyes. Didn't I teach you the trick of your sword? It wasn't for the joy of watching you flail about half-­cocked, I assure you.”

Avani echoed his exhale, shoulders slumping.

“
Ai
, and I know it.” She shook her head. “I'm rattled, is all. By the barrowmen, and their secrets.” She tore her scarf from her neck, wishing the heat would disperse with the vanishing sun. “Goddess knows, I've been feeling prickly for days. Mayhap it's only spring wanderlust.”

Everin went still, near as immobile as the Downs. Avani eyed him, suddenly suspicious.

“What is it?”

“Aye, well.” He glanced down and away, fists flexing at his sides. “I wasn't sat waiting only because I worried for you, black eyes. I could have worried over my bricks. Only, I wanted to make sure I caught you. There's been a messenger.”

“A messenger? From the keep? But you've just been down—­”

“Not the keep,” he interrupted gently. “He's come all the way from the city. Renault's sent a summons. You're needed.”

A
MAN
CROUCHED
in the dusk outside Everin's tent, tending a cook pot hung over a low fire. Avani smelled currants and fish. Her mouth flooded. She hadn't given thought to food all day; now her belly growled loudly.

“Growing weary of mutton, I see.” The man smiled as he stirred the cook pot. “I can't blame you. Personally, I've always favored the redder meats.”

Avani laughed in disbelief.

“My lord!” She paused midstride and sketched a rusty bow. “I didn't expect—­I mean, my lord, are you well?”

“I am.” Peter Shean rose, wooden ladle dangling from gloved fingers. “Now, I am, though it's been a close thing.” He stepped around the fire, pulled Avani into a quick embrace.

Avani hugged him back, biting back sorrow. When last she'd seen Peter, he'd been soft, pink and plump and pampered, a small man with too much weight on his bones. Now he was wasted, sculpted down to bone; she could feel the thrust of his ribs beneath against her clasp.

“You've been ill,” she diagnosed. “Sit, sit down. My lord. Let me.” She unbuckled her sword, traded blade for spoon, bent over the cook pot, even as she pinned him with a calculating stare.

“Not long out of sickbed,” she decided. “And come all this way. It's bad, then. Last I heard it was taking the youngest.”

Peter shook his head. In the dance of the fire his cheekbones were sharp, his eyes sunken.

“The Worm takes the children, aye,” he said. “The rest of it tastes and spits back out, less entire than we were, but not
quite
dead.” He fumbled a flask from beneath his cape, took a healthy swig, then passed the flask to Everin.

“
Ai!
” Avani protested, leaping up to snatch the drink before Everin touched his lips to the spout. “Contagion, my lord.”

“I'm clean.” Peter smiled without amusement. “I'd not be let past Wilhaiim's walls otherwise. I've the Masterhealer's stamp of approval.”

“Nevertheless.” Avani capped the flask. “Best not tempt ill luck.”

She turned back to the fish stew, stirring rapidly to hide the trembling in her hands. Juices slopped, making the fire spit.

“How long out of bed?”

“Several weeks. Calm, Avani, I promise you: I'm fully recovered.”

Everin ducked into his tent, returning with three ceramic bowls. He took the ladle from Avani's grip, spooned bubbling stew into each bowl.

“Come a long way, my lord, and quickly, by the state of your horses,” the big man said, passing across supper. “Likely not to feed us, although we're grateful for the boon. What's happened?”

Peter regarded Everin, expression thoughtful. The man had always been canny, and now Avani wondered if the Virgin King had fooled quite as many as he'd hoped.

“That bad, is it?” Everin paused in eating. Avani set her own bowl aside, no longer hungry. Past the tent she heard the snuffle and scuff of horses. She knew then, and she clutched at Everin's arm as horror clogged her throat.

“You've come to bring us back. Liam?” she choked. “The plague's taken Liam?”

Peter leapt to his feet, shaking his head in denial. Everin murmured reassurances. Avani pressed her palms over eyes, waiting for the roaring in her ears to pass. Peter knelt on the Downs at her feet, face stricken.

“Not the Worm, my lady,” he said, taking her hands, squeezing gently. “Last we saw, they were hale and healthy and riding for the coast.”

“They?” Avani said, even though she'd already guessed. Mal had promised to keep Liam safe; the vocent didn't take any vow lightly, he wouldn't have allowed Liam long out of his sight. “My lord also? Both?” Her voice cracked, but she felt no shame in it.

“They rode together, aye. The lad, Mal's squire, as usual. They rode to Selkirk, an easy journey, and meant to be brief, what with the plague, my lady. We expected them back . . .” He took a careful breath and met her stare. “Aye, well, the truth is they're long overdue.”

“How long overdue?” Everin asked, when Avani had difficulty shaping the question.

“Weeks,” Peter admitted. He rose again to his feet, looked up at the darkening sky. “Mayhap four. Renault ordered Mal out of the city for two sennights, but the truth of it is, Mal was reluctant to make the journey, and Renault expected him back early.”

“Spring plague ravaging the city and your king sent his vocent away?” Everin didn't hide his disapproval. “The Rose Keep's hardly Low Port, and far enough away the plagues aren't an issue. What—­”

“Mal's family,” Avani answered. “Selkirk is held by the Serrano family.”

Peter nodded. He returned to his seat, scraped the last of the fish stew out of the cook pot and into his bowl, then picked at the meal with his fingers.

“Not many ­people know that history,” he said. “Told you, did he? I must admit I'm surprised.”

“He doesn't like to speak of it.” Avani scowled at her feet so she didn't have to see Peter's pity. “Better to be known as Gerald Doyle's fosterling, he said. Mal had an elder brother.” She shook her head. “Lost to the sea. It was something we had in common.”

“Aye,” Peter murmured. “As the eldest, Rowan was meant to take the title, and Mal the merchant fleet.”

Everin scoffed. “Not with the old magic running through his veins. He wouldn't abide the deep water.”

“Which is why Rowan Serrano went to sea instead. Rowan managed but two voyages before he was killed by typhoon. After, there was some trouble, between the Selkirk and his remaining son. I don't recall the details, Katie knew more.” He paused. “Whatever occurred, Mal was sent on to foster. As far as I know, he eschewed Selkirk after.”

Full dark had fallen. Avani could hear the horses still stirring, peaceful in the cooling air. She linked her fingers loosely on her knee, striving for calm. She was grateful for Everin's thigh pressing against her own, imbuing comfort, and his ability to shape questions when she couldn't yet find words past the panic in her head.

“Why now?” the big man prompted. “In the middle of plague season?”

“Lady Selkirk sent word,” Peter replied. “The Selkirk was on death watch, and required his heir in attendance.”

“Malachi denied his inheritance when he was made vocent.”

“I understand the sea folk disagree. I'm told coastal families are their own breed, and have little use for flatland custom and ranking. Truth is, they have little use for their king.”

Everin's shifted against Avani's knee.

“Best Renault remind them of their fealty,” he suggested, dry. “They're not an easy folk to put down once they rise.”

“What is a visit from the vocent,” Peter said, “if not a gentle reminder? Mal is neither stupid nor unimposing. He knew what he was about.”

“Apparently not,” Everin mused. “If he and the lad have gone missing. Did they make Selkirk, at least?”

“In time to bless the body, and pass on the title to the lady of the keep. By all accounts they were both healthy, and spoke nothing to anyone of trouble on the road.”

“Nothing to anyone.” Avani could hear the mockery in Everin's voice. “Sweeping statement, that.”

“His Majesty is very fond of Malachi.” For the first time Peter allowed irritation to creep into his weary tones. “When Mal didn't return, the king sent some of his best men after. If the coastal families had forgotten fealty before, they're well reminded of it now, I assure you.”

Everin propped his elbows on his knees, regarding Peter with quirked brows. “By ‘best men,' you mean yourself,” he guessed. “Those aren't coastal horses. The animals are too fine.”

“King's horses,” Peter agreed. “The two Mal took from Wilhaiim. We found them tucked into what passes as Selkirk's stables. The boy who looked after them was near tears. He said Malachi had ordered enough grain for ten nights, and paid coin in advance.”

“He didn't mean to stay the fortnight.” Everin cracked a knuckle, frowning. “But likely some time in between. Sign of foul play?”

“None other than their belongings left behind, including the vocent's journal, which in itself is damming. Not even the wrathful hand of God would send Malachi fleeing without his book.”

“Where is it now?” Avani asked. “Have you read it through?”

Peter blinked across the fire. “I haven't many letters, my lady. Kate was trying to teach me, but . . .” he shrugged. “I haven't a talent for it. The ink shifted on the paper, I couldn't keep the letters straight. I've the journal in my pack; it's for His Majesty only.”